


do his damnedest

by madanach



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alcohol, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madanach/pseuds/madanach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She first meets Jack when he burns her city to the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do his damnedest

**Author's Note:**

> written for tumblr user medisoldier as part of the borderlands secret santa.

She first meets Jack when he burns her city to the ground.

She's heard of him, of course -- strange man lands on her planet with anti-bandit preachings and a weapons manufacturer at his back, she's had no choice. Her people have been more worried than she, whispering among themselves that he's been conquering in a wave, that he has an army of heartless mechs and men who don't feel pain, that he's building a shining city on the bones of Pandora's finest. She pays them no mind -- her people are frightened and weak, and any glistening boy with a mind for her country can do his damnedest to take it from her.  
That's exactly what he does, of course. He brings his bots and his guns and he takes her town by force, slaughtering her fighters like cattle and her civilians like less than that. If she were noble she would have died fighting, died with the people who looked to her bloody brand of justice for their defense and their death, but she has never been noble and she won't die for anyone but herself. Instead she walks out of her hall with head held high, hands braced on the bannister of the last structure standing, and dares the machines to strike her down.

They lower their guns, and she smiles. So much for the king of New Pandora.

(Jack brings her in, parades her down his hallways like some sort of trophy, but when they finally come face-to-face she can look down at him, a masked man with an army as gleeful as a child playing at toys. Before you kill me, she says, I have a proposition for you. She whispers war into his ear, and he grins as he accepts.)

 

So she builds a city. He gives her the charred remnants of a revolution and she carves down, deep into the rock, traces out mines and tunnels with a slum-town fortress to top it off. She mans it with people of her own liking, those Jack would rather see dead and buried than working his ore, and she kills them. The first time Jack sees her stockades and hangman's noose the wind and the stench makes him choke, and she sees this as a victory.

 

There are six things you have to know to love Handsome Jack.

One. He is never quite as amused as he makes himself out to be.

Two. But he is twice as proud

Three. He will draw blood and it will mean "I love you".

Four. You will want to kill him. This is okay. He will want to kill you too.

Five. Make sure your boots leave scuff marks on his spotless floors.

Six. Pack light.

 

"So, do you like my city?" Jack asks, smirking so widely that she can hear it through his words. "A masterpiece. Paradise in this Hell, whaddaya think?"

She runs her fingers across a street sign, _Welcome to Opportunity_ \-- her glove leaves a layer of grime that cuts through the yellow-and-white uniformity. "You're asking the wrong person, Jackie," she says, "you know how I hate cleanliness."

Jack looks perturbed. "Come on, you can appreciate the theory, at least! It's a wonder! The pinnacle of Hyperion's influence. Once I get people in here, there'll be no better place on Pandora."

She laughs quietly. "Whatever you say, darlin'."

 

She heard about Control Core Angel through a worker of hers, a nomad idiot who had the audacity to ask why she cared to know. She shot the words out of him (he bled too fast for her to hang him, unfortunately, but that's the price of information these days). _It's a real place,_ he choked out through a throat full of blood, _up by Thousand Cuts, a tower and a bunker that can't be breached. The King's been throwing his weight against the door since he built up there, but he's had no luck, please, it's impenetrable, please, have mercy._

And so the next time she's in Opportunity she slips away from Jack's sermons long enough to talk-slash-scare her way into one of his control rooms. The boards and screens are locked, of course, but Jack's always been infuriatingly easy to predict. It only takes her seconds to break his codes and bring up the entire Hyperion database. A search for Control Core Angel brings up nothing, as she expected, but CCA brings up a screen whose ten-digit access she can't puzzle out.

"Damn," she murmurs, pushing the keyboard in with a bit more force than necessary. "What are you hiding, Jackie-boy?"

"Why do you want to know?"

She spins around. The voice comes from a screen behind her, static imagery distorting and relaxing to show a fragmented image of a girl. She's young, with dark hair and blue eyes, and she reeks of power in a way Jack could never achieve.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"You are the Sheriff of Lynchwood." says the girl. "You were born under another name, but you stopped using that long ago -- I'd be surprised if you could even remember what it was. You've been dating Jack for three years, working Eridium mines for two. Everyone's scared of you -- even Jack, to an extent. You're a sadist and a slave lord. You have no reason to care about Jack's secrets, because Jack's secrets could care less about you. Now leave, before he comes back."  
She considers this, grins up at the girl on the screen. "Yes, that's all true, but I asked who you are. I know who I am."

"I'm a secret," says the girl, and smiles back.

 

Jack drinks in a bar in Opportunity, a high-class establishment that's always carefully empty when he comes around. He spends the waning hours of the night telling stories, building up grand legends about how _great_ Pandora will be when he wins this war, when he controls a weapon fit for a god that can scrub this land free of sin. It's always amused her that he believes it, believes that he can be a king and a god and not be dethroned by the dirt at his feet. She's never had a taste for immortality. He's a different story.

She takes a drink of her beer, cuts him off in the middle of another tirade about _bandit scum_. "What if they win?"

He looks blank. "What are you talking about, if they _win_?"

She shrugs. "Consider all possibilities." His glass slams down as he stands up, grabbing her by the collar and pulling her across the table. She grins into his scowling face.

"They won't," Jack snarls, his breath smelling of ale, "won't _win,_ don't you even say, give them that _luxury-_ "

She's taller than him and stronger than him despite everything, prying his hands out of her collar, circling the table in two steps to push him against the wall and laugh lightly at his fury. Her gloves leave prints against his pristine jacket, her lipstick leaving marks as she hisses into his ear, _what if you lose, Jack, what if they find you and take all you hold dear,_ and he smashes his lips against hers just to shut her up.

 

 _You'll die today,_ the nameless girl whispers in her ear.

It's not a surprise. Not really. A patchwork team of Vault Hunters have been raiding Lynchwood for days now, looting her bank, breaking her train, slaughtering the men that were hers to slaughter. She doesn't need a grayscale AI to tell her when she's beaten. Yes, I know, she says, and loads a fresh clip into her revolver. Pistols at high noon, she tells the marauders, and sits back and waits for her demise.

"You could run," the girl suggests. "One of your trains is still functioning, you could be in Opportunity in a cycle of the sun. Or you could surrender."

"They'd kill me either way."

"Of course they would."

"Thanks," she mumbles, playing with the lock on her .45. Deputy Winger watches the rhythmic repetition nervously -- lock, pull, spin, lock, pull, spin. She puts a slug in his head without standing up. Ten paces, right between the eyes, but the absence of his frenzied breathing does nothing to ease her anxiety.

And then there's a woman, watching her, and three mercs at her back. The peaking sun moves them into position, the ring of the clock turns their backs. One.

Two.

Three

Bang.

(They turn her body over, watch as her blood blooms into the dirt, and pull her gun from slack fingers. There's a handprint barely visible over the slick Hyperion colors, but it feels foreign enough for them to drop it back next to her. _Good riddance,_ says Axton, watching her corpse with distaste. Maya reaches out a hand and closes the Sheriff's eyes.)


End file.
